rburnett, + baygator, we opted out and didn't try to book a trip. The weekend was going quickly and the family decided to just hang out and be together. I'd really like to book a trip with that guy one day. Thanks again for the info! Congrats on the nice catch of gags rburnett!

G8trGr8t, I hope you have an entire freezer room for that haul! I love seeing the kids fishing! The look like they were really enjoying it! Introducing them to a life long sport when they are young....great!

Rella! Beautiful red and trout! I hope to be out there in that area on Sat, and I hope we do half as well as you! I know you cooked up a great meal with those keepers too!

My fishing outings have been few and far between lately. . . so I am living vicariously through you guys.
But alas, I got to fish today. Caught a few nice bonito that got carved into chunk bait. Then hit a wreck and put a clients son on a couple amberjack. After that we picked thru some bottom fish before I decided we needed to venture offshore. It was a good decision. We found a nice weedline 7 miles out and had our fill of dolphin. We could have caught 50, but left them chewing after landing the big one.

Finally got to kill some gags. Went on a family vacation down to Anna Maria Island with the inlaws. Gave a shout to my old frat house roommate and we got a trip lined up. I got to see first hand how good the grouper fishing is off Tampa Bay. We caught 3 pretty nice ones and lost some absolute freight trains. We were like 3 for 10 on biggun's and probably caught another 15-20 short gags and reds. All in like 45-50 ft of water

Gator7_5 - look how flat... it was like that every single day, we could run to the edge on the cape with wind like that! nomsayin?

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The weather has been junk all summer. Glad you caught that window.

Was down in Key West a couple of weeks ago and the weather was terrible. We got one window so we ran out to Cay Sal for some deep drops. Crushed the yellow eyes from 600 - 1200 ft. Spent the night out there on a 35 Yellowfin. Grilled them then and there, drank a ton of rum and passed out on beanbags. The only day offshore over the course of 12 days there.

Inshore, boated 5 tarpon ranging from 100- 150lbs and jumped 4 more the day prior to the Cay Sal run.

our water at this end of the sugar toilet is terrible right now. absolutely disgusted that we pay for big sugar to pollute our estuaries like this and the army corps of engineers continues to backpump in spite of court orders not to do so.

our water at this end of the sugar toilet is terrible right now. absolutely disgusted that we pay for big sugar to pollute our estuaries like this and the army corps of engineers continues to backpump in spite of court orders not to do so.

Big problems in Mosquito Lagoon the past few years too. Brown algea killing hundreds of thousands of acres of seagrass. Manatees and dolphins being found dead in alarming numbers. This brown algea has only been found in one other place. Laguna Madre and Baffin Bay in Texas. It started in the early 90s and lasted 8 years there and still comes back randomly.
Makes me upset that the St Johns water mismanagement district allows big companies to take too much water out of the ground to bottle and sell along with other projects that politics allowed. Look at the increase in sinkholes around the state. There is a connection.
When I was young, I never gave a thought about water. Now, I see the damage done and its going to be a decades long battle to TRY and fix it.

Slipped a shrimp under one of my old trusty redfish docks Sat am. About one minute later had a 25"er in the cooler. Didn't cast in the hole again, but I have to believe they're stacked up. Fried up in time for kickoff!

This pier supplied keepers all yr long for about the last 6 or so yrs when I found it... and noone knew about it. It's back in a bayou at one time you could only get to by kayak or jonboat. Well, the entrance got sealed up about 3 yrs ago. Recently a wave of storms put a new opening about a foot deep through the sawgrass. It's back on like donkey kong! Half way through the fight he shot out of the small cut into the bigger bayou..

headed 25 miles out of Naples Sunday am with my 10 year old son hunting his first keepepr grouper. Ran a little late awaiting the storms to clear but had lines in the water by 8:30. Stopped on the way out and got gas and let him hand feed some shrimp to the snook that hang out at the marina. Bruisers.... 40" plus but they will snap a shrimp out of your hand and not even touch your fingers.

Got him warned up using his bigger snook rod and some squid catching some 15" to 18" red grouper. They put up a good fight on 20 pound spinning tackle and it got him working pretty hard by the time he pulled up 10 or so shorts. Threw a snapper head on the grouper slayer and set it in the rod holder for him and let him go at it. With the circle hooks and anchored all I had to do was let the grouper feed long enough and then let him crank like mad till he got it up from the bottom. I would then transition the 4/0 stand up rod to him and he would work the fish the rest of the way up and guide it to the net pretty much by himself.

Got into a hot grouper bite trying to handle him, myself and help my buddy net his grouper and left a 1 year old penn 6500 on a nice rod laying at a flat angle against the gunnel with aboout 20 feet of line out with a small little piece of squid on it. In a blink a big kingfish jetted by and snatched it out of the boat clean. rod didin't hit anything on the boat on the way out and didn't hit the water till 25' or so from the boat. happened so fast with no other sound than splash that it took me a minute to process what I was looking at and by then the rod and reel were out of reach.

$150 in gas, $300 in rod and reel, watching my son hand feed some snook, limit out on some nice red grouper and boat a 28" red all by himself (had to grab him 2x, drag was locked down and he got over his toes a couple of times and big red had him headed over the edge lol) ...priceless